1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication device, a wireless communication system and a wireless communication method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a high-speed personal area network that uses an ultra wideband wireless communication system has been proposed. Further, in this high-speed personal area network, it has been proposed that a given wireless communication device and wireless communication devices in the vicinity form an ad hoc network in an autonomous and distributed way to perform communication. Note that the regulations for performing communication under autonomous distributed control are defined by, for example, the Distributed Media Access Control Layer Specification established by the WiMedia Alliance.
Further, a known type of access control in the wireless communication field is request to send/clear to send (RTS/CTS) control. It is thought that, if the RTS/CTS control is used, a hidden terminal that is hidden from a transmission source device can be notified that data transmission is being performed from the transmission source device.
Further, partial improvements in the RTS/CTS control have been proposed from various quarters. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2007-67472 describes a wireless communication device that, when it receives an RTS addressed to another device but does not receive a CTS in response to the RTS, performs data transmission in a data transmission period (originally, a period to set a NAV) described in the RTS.